The U.S. military gave us the bones of the internet and the beginning of civilian nuclear power. Will the Defense Department also lead the way on the much-ballyhooed arrival of advanced reactors? The Pentagon is hip-deep in plans for, not a small, but a tiny, mobile nuke, a 1-5 MW high temperature gas reactor that… More Project Pele, DOD’s Bet on Mobile Microreactors
The blockbuster Oppenheimer movie, based on an excellent biography,* tells the semi-tragic story of scientific superstar J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the American project to develop the atomic bomb. But the legacy of the bomb program, which the film, already at three hours, does not address, includes nuclear waste from the weapons program, still a… More Oppenheimer: An A-Bomb Waste Legacy
In the worldwide battle for electric generation, coal isn’t down and out. It isn’t even on the ropes. According to World Energy Data (formerly BP’s data collection report), coal is still the champ. In 2022, coal accounted for 35.4% of global electric generation, followed by natural gas (22.7%), hydro (14.9%), nuclear (9.2%), wind (7.2%), solar… More Clean Energy Isn’t Killing Coal, Still World Champ
A proposed federal environmental and energy permitting rule by a White House agency could scuttle a separate but related energy permitting deal negotiated earlier this year by President Biden and congressional Republicans. The Council on Environmental Quality, part of the Executive Office of the President, on July 31 published its “Phase 2” of a rulemaking… More White House-House GOP Permitting Dispute Erupts
The U.S. Department of Energy isn’t doing enough to help electric utilities face potential shortages of large power transformers (LPTs), which could jeopardize reliability of the nation’s high-voltage transmission grid, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO is the Congressional watchdog agency that reviews executive branch agency performance. In its August… More GAO Examines Big Transformer Issues, DOE Response
The massive, bipartisan Senate’s “National Defense Authorization Act” includes major changes to the regulation of civilian nuclear power by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy, including a 20-year extension of the controversial Price-Anderson insurance subsidy for nuclear power plants. The Senate DOD bill, which passed 86-11, includes the entire “Accelerating Deployment… More Senate DOD Money Bill Includes Extended Price-Anderson Civilian Nuke Subsidy
In what could be its most significant action in the last 20 years, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last Thursday (July 27) ordered a revolution in how new electric generation and storage can apply to get onto the transmission grid. The new approach to streamline grid interconnection — Order 2023 – (order nomenclature at FERC… More FERC Revolutionizes Grid Interconnection Process
A familiar, ubiquitous, even mundane technology – underground pipelines – could be the show stopper for the Biden administration’s ambitious plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fueled electric power plants. Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency is counting on carbon capture and sequestration – pulling the CO2 out of the flue gas and burying it in… More Pipelines a CCS Bottleneck?
The Biden administration is moving to increase fees for onshore oil and gas leasing on federal land, updating policies that date back to the 1950s. The move, published as a proposed rule in the July 24 Federal Register, is certain to lead to a furious assault from oil and gas industry. In its proposal, the… More Biden BLM Moves to Reform Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing
A predictable, cyclical, celestial event could strike the Earth this year or next, possibly eclipsing climate change, Ukraine, or the upcoming presidential campaign for damage and drama, at least in the short term. The scientific moniker is “coronal mass ejections” or, predictably, CMEs. For laymen, call it “solar flares” or “solar storms.” In our acronym-addicted… More The Great Solar Storm of 2024?